Cold Covid - part the fourth

Leonhardt's column today attempts to backpedal and shift blame for his egregious nonsense in early October. One of the hallmarks of the current situation is the, overall, lower slope of the case count graph. But let's see. These missives have postulated that the explanation is simple: the current infections are, almost completely, within the unvaccinated, which are both more sparse (from a national perspective) and more concentrated (in, mostly, the Red States; and, naturally, the Red enclaves of the Blue States). Thus we should find the lower sloping graphs in higher vaccinated states, and higher sloping graphs in lower vaccinated states. And we do.

The bad news about the virus's unpredictability is that surges can sneak up on us: The lack of a Covid increase across most of northern North America a month ago was not as reassuring as it may have seemed.

Of course, as I said on 8 October, there was, at that time, no such thing as a "lack of a Covid increase". It was plain in the NYT's own maps and graphs. You just had to look.

Well, lookie here. By one measure, West Virginia (not yet a Cold State, but still...) has the lowest full vaccination rate at 41%. In that same data set, Connecticut is at 71%.

Viewing the graphs at the NYT, one can see clearly the difference in infection uptake between the two states, slower/shallower with high vaccination, faster/steeper without. Now there are unexplained anomalies, particularly Vermont, which is at 72%, yet has gone hypersonic. But, there's always a but, Vermont was declining from the recent peak... until 1 November when cases took off. Cold Covid, indeed. Of particular note is the 'Hot Spots' map which doesn't show Burlingtono's county as one. The two really hot spots are Essex and Rutland counties; the former a pretty much empty county, while Rutland not so much. Rural redneck deniers are everywhere.

Another state, which has (finally) garnered some ink in the Fake News press, is Michigan. A cold state, especially the UP, it was increasing at the shallow rate one would expect (vaccination at 54%; not great but not horrid) of a pandemic of the unvaccinated, then skyrocketed from the end of October. In this case, not surprisingly, the hot spot counties match quite nicely to the vaccination (or, lack thereof) map. Who wooda thunk it?

So, are we headed the way of Austria? Or may be Brazil? Only the Shadow knows.